Muslim Mysteries

These whodunits all have an Islamic connection, whether it's the location, the detective, the victim, or the suspect. This list was created to enhance the library's Muslim Journeys programming throughout 2013, sponsored through a grant from the American Library Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In Peshawar, a remote Pakistani town on the Afghan border, an American businessman disappears and is presumed dead. We follow the bumbling Detective Iqbal as he tries to solve that crime, as well as the ones that follow, and discover that the women in his life are actually solving the mystery for him. This allows him to glimpse into the lives of many women who are part of Islamic culture in different ways.

Sub-Inspector Max Romero is liaison to the Muslim community in his district. When a young, female, Muslim graduate student is found murdered, he must work around post-9/11 politics and anti-terrorism units to find the culprit.

Yasmin Akram, educated daughter of devout Muslim professionals, and Ricky Skeet, a troubled boy from an unhappy home, both disappear on the same day. At first, everyone, including Detective Tom Mariner, assume the two cases are unrelated. But digging into the lives of the two students may lead to a different conclusion.

A controversial young Saudi Arabian filmmaker is found dead on the beach and Detective Inspector Osama Ibrahim knows how hard it is to search for murder suspects when half of the population traverses the streets with their faces covered.

When Amina Diallo, a Senegalese Muslim immigrant, is put on trial for arson and the murder of a Boston firefighter, her attorneys face every hardship possible trying to get her acquitted, including someone who wants this woman convicted badly enough to kill.

A professor with controversial views on Islamic extremists is very publicly killed outside of a London university. Scotland Yard Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla and Chief Inspector David Brock find themselves tangled up in a case that includes medical genetic research, religious, and race controversies.

Transported to Saudi Arabia to join her engineer husband, Frances Shore is bored, alone and suffering from a severe case of culture shock. Then, from the apartment upstairs - that her neighbors swear is empty - she begins hearing voices and crying every night.

In 1355, blind Jewish physician Isaac of Girona has a young Muslim apprentice, Yusuf Ibn Hasan. Yusuf has been summoned to return to his home country by the Emir of Granada. After he is almost murdered more than once, Yusuf again seeks a safe haven with his mentor. But everything is not calm back in Girona, because Isaac needs Yusuf's help to find a killer.

Set in Turkey in the late nineteenth century, the mysterious death of an English governess who was part of the Sultan's Court has new magistrate Kamil Pasha and Jewish surgeon Michel Sevy working together to find the connection to another Englishwoman's death under similar circumstances years before. They are helped by Sybil, daughter of the British Ambassador, who is more freely able to interact with the female court members. The author delivers a historically accurate and fascinating glimpse into the world of the Ottoman Turks.